Search for: All records

Abstract The last two decades have shown the importance of Rhizaria in the biogeochemical cycles of carbon and silicon in modern oceans. This eukaryotic supergroup, which includes Radiolaria and Phaeodaria, represents an important part of zooplanktonic carbon biomass and contributes to carbon and silica export. Still, accurate estimations of their carbon biomass are hindered by poor knowledge of their elemental composition, contrasting with well‐established allometric carbon‐to‐volume relationships for smaller protists such as phytoplankton. Here, we directly measured carbon, nitrogen, and biogenic silica content as well as silicon uptake rates of planktonic Rhizaria. We highlight that size can be used as a predictor of elemental content for a broad variety of planktonic Rhizaria ranging from 200 μm to several mm, whereas size is weakly correlated with silicon uptake rates. Our results indicate that the scaling exponent of the carbon‐to‐volume allometry is significantly lower than those for smaller protists, underlining the low carbon strategy of these organisms. Still, we show that carbon and nitrogen densities span over four orders of magnitude, possibly accounting for the differences in depth ranges, nutritional modes and colonial or solitary forms. We estimate Rhizaria sinking speeds by combining carbon, nitrogen, and silica content data and show that great variability exists among the different taxa. Besides giving a better understanding of rhizarian ecology and biogeochemistry, these analyses, at the individual scale, are a first step to subsequent biomass and flux estimations at larger scales. 

Abstract Picoplankton populations dominate the planktonic community in the surface oligotrophic ocean. Yet, their strategies in the acquisition and the partitioning of organic and inorganic sources of nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) are poorly described. Here, we measured at the single‐cell level the uptake of dissolved inorganic C (C‐fixation), C‐leucine, N‐leucine, nitrate (NO₃⁻), ammonium (NH₄⁺), and N‐urea in pigmented and nonpigmented picoplankton groups at six low‐N stations in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean. Our study highlights important differences in trophic strategies betweenProchlorococcus,Synechococcus, photosynthetic pico‐eukaryotes, and nonpigmented prokaryotes. Nonpigmented prokaryotes were characterized by high leucine uptake rates, nonsignificant C‐fixation and relatively low NH₄⁺, N‐urea, and NO₃⁻uptake rates. Nonpigmented prokaryotes contributed to 7% ± 3%, 2% ± 2%, and 9% ± 5% of the NH₄⁺, NO₃⁻, and N‐urea community uptake, respectively. In contrast, pigmented groups displayed relatively high C‐fixation rates, NH₄⁺and N‐urea uptake rates, but lower leucine uptake rates than nonpigmented prokaryotes.Synechococcusand photosynthetic pico‐eukaryotes NO₃⁻uptake rates were higher thanProchlorococcusones. Pico‐sized pigmented groups accounted for a significant fraction of the community C‐fixation (63% ± 27%), NH₄⁺uptake (47% ± 27%), NO₃⁻uptake (62% ± 49%), and N‐urea uptake (81% ± 35%). Interestingly,Prochlorococcusand photosynthetic pico‐eukaryotes showed a greater reliance on C‐ and N‐leucine thanSynechococcuson average, suggesting a greater reliance on organic C and N sources. Taken together, our single‐cell results decipher the wide diversity of C and N trophic strategies between and within marine picoplankton groups, but a clear partitioning between pigmented and nonpigmented groups still remains.